David Cameron breastfeeds

Oh, not really, but you know what I mean. The attempts to portray David Cameron as a loving father are becoming nothing short of nauseating, as this picture taken from the cover of Peopletalk magazine, which the Tories have seen fit to send me, shows.

David Cameron is a loving father, but that's not enough. Cameron must be seen to be a loving father.

I wouldn't mind this so much if it didn't go alongside the Tories' half-baked draft manifesto proposal to "recognise marriage and civil partnerships in the tax system in the next Parliament". At least they don't propose to discriminate against gay "married" couples, only unmarried couples... and single parents.

Privileging married couples over other people cannot turn back the tide on the massive social upheavals that the decline of marriage represents. It cannot help end child poverty. All it can do is penalise and stigmatise the parents and the children who do not fit this pattern.

My parents divorced when I was young. Perhaps they should never have married! They did, though, and they tried to make their marriage work, but they couldn't. They rowed a lot when I was growing up, and I can't say that I minded very much when that was taken out of my life. I was sad they split up, but perhaps I wouldn't have minded at all if the rowing had gone on.

Once they split, the weirdest suggestion you might make to me would be that they would get back together!

What did I mind about growing up in a single-parent household?

(1) the poverty
(2) the stigma.

It seems to me that the Tories' "family-friendly" proposal can only reinforce these - poverty, stigma - for children from single-parent or unmarried couple households when, for decades, we have been moving away from them.

One of my best friends was a "little bastuard" - a term I learned from my grandmother who learned it at the music hall! We have long, long, I hope, ceased despising children whose parents aren't married.

Two lesbian friends of mine have just had a baby. They are not married. Society changes, for the better, when it frees up people from age-old social prejudice and expectation. Let who will marry, but leave the rest of us alone!